“Aye.”
“Thank you, Mister Allen. That wasn’t difficult.” Tennant stood. “Good day.”
After he exited, Tennant looked up at the window. Allen stared down; the inspector nodded.
You dodged my last question,Tennant thought.What was Rawlings doing for Allingham and Allen?
Back at the Yard, Tennant found a note from his sergeant.
Poplar has more bawdy houses than a year has Sundays. Finally found the one where the madam remembers Micah turning up with a coil of rope. Fella was otherwise occupied the afternoon Margot was killed.
“Hell and damnation.” Tennant crushed the note in his fist.Every avenue’s a dead end.
CHAPTER10
Aline of sleepy fishmongers queued up at the coffee stall at sunrise, waiting for Billingsgate Market to open. On a freezing March morning, the brazier’s coals and the dark brew warmed and wakened the drowsy market men.
A thick mist blanketed the warehouse district. The Thames was only steps away, but the river was invisible behind a curtain of fog. Only the river’s slapping at the waterline, creaking oak timbers, and the distant clang of a lonely bell reminded the fishmongers it was there. Wagons lined the street. Horses stamped, drivers hunched shoulders against the cold as men and beasts streamed steamy breath into the chill.
A speeding carriage with its shades drawn careened around the corner. As it passed the coffee stall, its door opened, and something tumbled from the cabin. Then the carriage flew down Lower Thames Street and made a sharp left turn. The incident was over in twenty seconds.
Two men with coffee mugs left the warmth of the stall to investigate the bundle. “Oy, mate, it looks like a . . .” The man handed his cup to his partner and dropped to one knee. When he tugged at the bundle, it opened.
“Bloody hell.” The man leaped to his feet and shouted to the men on the coffee line, “Christ sake—somebody find the fecking rozzer on this beat!”
* * *
Sergeant O’Malley handed Inspector Tennant the police report from Billingsgate.
“Someone dumped a woman’s body near the fish market. They’re wanting to turn it over to the detective squad, and the chief has a mind to give us this one.”
“Why? Any connection to our cases?”
“Someone tossed her from a moving carriage. Tied up in a sack, poor lass, just like Franny Riley and . . .”
“Something else, Paddy?”
“They’re describing her as an Asian lady. Strange for these parts, I’m thinking.”
“All right, Sergeant. Have a note delivered to Doctor Lewis at Finsbury Circus. Where are they holding the body?”
“At Tower Street Station.”
“Send the doctor my compliments and ask her to meet us there.”
* * *
Julia had begun her postmortem preparations in a narrow back room of the Billingsgate station house by the time Tennant arrived. Sergeant Smithson, the local officer who’d taken charge of the body, was there to observe as well.
Julia cut away the rope and removed the torn canvas sack that covered the corpse. “I doubt her heart was beating when they threw her from the carriage,” she said. “One side of her face and upper body is severely abraded, but there should have been more blood.”
Julia heaved aside a second sack that held four heavy stones.
Tennant said, “Probably heading for the Thames, intending to throw her in, but changed their minds.”
Sergeant Smithson nodded. “You couldn’t see an inch past your nose by the river’s edge, so they dumped the girl and scarpered.”
“It’s similar to an earlier case of ours,” Tennant said. “Someone dumped a girl in a sack near Lambeth Bridge.”
